| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Carl A. Brasseaux and Keith P. Fontenot. Steamboats on Louisiana's Bayous: A History and Directory. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 2004. Pp. xi, 277. $54.95.

This is the first major work on southern Louisiana's steamboat industry, but the book is unfortunately very narrowly conceptualized. By focusing almost entirely on the business history of the steamboat industry, and by almost ignoring the social and cultural history of steamboats in the bayou region, Carl A. Brasseaux and Keith P. Fontenot limit the importance of their findings. The authors subtly romanticize steamboats in a way that is reminiscent of early twentieth-century steamboat historians who longed for days just then passing from view. Like those early works, this is a story about the boats, where they went, how much they carried, and how the railroads won. Furthermore, the authors discuss steamboating as a world separated from land, rather than as being intimately connected and sustaining to economic actors on the banks of Louisiana's bayous. The result is a book with strong antiquarian elements that lacks an analytical hook. The authors tell a well-worn story from the perspective of those who owned the steamboats and who profited from their success.

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